Off Camera
Alzy Hawkshaw gets out of his rental car, a black Mustang with plenty of horsepower, and he looks up at the house which belongs to none other than his sister Lynn Brewster. It had been a very long time since Alzy had been there, the last time being when he was in FTWO and she had been general manager of it. There had been some harsh words then, but it was Alzy’s fault as he let a knee injury nearly turn into an addiction problem. Lynn had been the one to keep him from going down that road. It was during that time that they realized that Alzy’s father……was actually Lynn’s father that they were siblings, and that discovery had strained their friendship. NowAlzy is back, this time being invited by Emily, who has just pulled up behind him. She gets out of the car and walks over to him, looking up to see if she can see what he does. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary Emily points her head towards the house.
Emily: Um you want to go in, or just sit here and admire the lawn?
Alzy: Yeah, I’m just…..last time I was here….
Emily: And that was what? 7 or 8 years ago? My mom doesn’t carry ordinary grudges that long. Plus she’s off in Africa doing another show. So it’s just Steve and William, plus Marie. Steve is willing to help us so come on.
Emily goes in the house and the soft lighting of the hallway is there. There is noise coming from the kitchen area and so Emily and Alzy head that way. They find William on a stool reaching across the island, flour all over his face and shirt, happily playing with the bread dough before him. His uncle Steve Brewster is watching the 4 year old boy and then sees Emily and Alzy.
Steve: Hey sorry. Didn’t hear you come in.
Emily: Its ok, not sure you could have heard us above him. Hey squirt.
Michael looks up at his oldest sister, flour on the end of his nose. Emily picks up a kitchen towel and wipes his face off, then gives him a kiss.
Michael: Can I have a hug too?
Emily smiles and takes off her black leather coat, handing it to Alzy and almost instantly gets a couple of arms wrapped around her. Emily looks down and gets Michael back on his stool.
Emily: This mean you’ve missed me?
Michael: Why don’t you visit more? It’s lonely here.
Emily: It can’t be that lonely, you have Marie.
Michael looks at Steve, then back at Emily as if he has a secret that he isn’t sure he can share with her. So instead Steve breaks the news to Emily.
Steve: Marie…….isn’t living here right now.
Emily feels like a knife just stabbed her in the heart.
Emily: Would you mind telling me where she is then.
Steve: She’s living out at the beach with Brian. Her and your mom had a pretty nasty fight about …..how Dad signed for Marie so that Marie could wrestle.
Emily: Oh I bet that went over great with Mom.
Steve: I think if it had been in a company your mom not just worked for, but was general manager of, she’d been more receptive. They got home from the last show and it broke out into world war three. I thought they would throw punches before it was done. I got them separated and Marie said unless your mom apologized she wasn’t staying in here. So when she was leaving I asked her where she was going and she was going to get a hotel room. I sent her to Brian. Now they’re out there and someone who isn’t as judgmental is keeping an eye on her. Making sure she goes to school, gets homework done, all that. Right now your sister is in…..
Emily: Africa. Yeah I heard. Hell I’ve already seen the video of her match on YouTube. She did pretty damn good for someone who lost. But there is talent there. I told her to wait and not be too anxious but apparently I talked to the wall. By the way what are we making?
Michael: Pizza!! Steve said I can have pepperoni and sausage and olives and…….
Emily: Is there anything you DON’T want?
Michael: No spicy peppers…..oh and no pineapple.
Emily: Don’t let mom here you say that. She loves pineapple on her pizza. Anyway…..can you help us?
Steve: Sure, figure out where and what while I clean up the dough monster here.
Michael: But my pizza!
Steve: I know. Here’s the spoon for the sauce and the toppings. Here….
Steve slides the crust Michael made onto a baking sheet.
Steve: Ok put on your toppings. When you’re done with that go wash up. Make sure you get your face and put on a clean shirt. As soon as I’m done with Emily and Alzy I’ll get it cooking.
Michael: You guys want one?
Steve: It’s up to you. We have plenty of dough.
Emily: Sure. I want….
Michael: Everything but sausage. Alzy?
Alzy: I’ll take everything and that includes sausage.
Michael grins at Alzy, and grabs a ball of dough to make a crust for Emily’s pizza.
Steve: We’ll be in the den when you get done and cleaned up.
Michael nods as he works on the dough. The other three go down to the den, and Emily turns on a couple lamps. Steve looks at them, but seems a bit concerned. Finally Alzy looks at Steve.
Alzy: What? You seem……I don’t know, I can’t nail it.
Steve: What’s pretty much how I feel and I don’t know why. Everything looks to be fine. Maybe it’s this whole thing with Marie and your mom.
Emily: Who are you fooling? It’s precisely that. Look I love mom, and I know she loves me but Marie has always been….a bit more her favorite than me, and I get it. Marie’s dad……
Emily looks at Alzy.
Emily: You ever meet Ron?
Alzy: Ron? As in Ron Caedes, known also as Karnij? Yep, ran into him a few times. Seems ok.
Steve: As long as you’re not on his bad side. Which Lynn was one of those areas you better be ready for a war if you cross her. I would bet money that if he knows that Marie is wrestling….there will be hell to pay if anyone hurts her. Anyway you two need to freshen up or anything while I get on the Pillsbury dough boy in there? I’ll be right back.
Emily looks at Alzy, who looks almost a different level of intensity.
Emily: Look, I KNOW we can do this. I’m just saying that those two brought up some things that I think we can use to our advantage this time out.
Alzy: I hope so Emily. I feel like I’ve let you down although the crack about me holding back…..good thing he’s facing you and not me.
Emily: Well let’s focus on DEA and then see what happens.
On Camera
The camera opens to show Alzy Hawkshaw and Emily Desmond sitting in the home of Emily’s mom, Lynn Brewster. Emily is sitting in an overstuffed chair, dressed in jeans and a light purple silk shirt that shimmers in the light, her dark hair loose. Alzy is also wearing jeans and is wearing a dark purple button down shirt, his hair back in a neat ponytail.
Emily: So here we are at TLC 2018 and we have a chance to capture something that has alluded us for some unknown reason, and that is the SCW Tag Team titles, held by DEA.
Alzy: You know I find it ironic that people say that we’re using the “Freebird rule” when we are nowhere near it. If you mean that Emily’s father Chris is considered part of our merry little band, that part is true.
Emily: However he does so as a manager, nothing else. He won’t get in the ring again unless directly provoked. But when it comes to the team don’t think “oh we might get Chris” because you won’t. You get the two of us, and we are tired of fighting against a system that when we want to use it, people whine and complain and refuse to listen to our requests for a shot at the title but happily employ iu when it makes their plans work.
Alzy: Case and point. DEA, the team of Kennedy and Lucius Tendonin. Amazing that you are defending the titles because everywhere it says that Brian Kennedy and REQUIEM are the champions. Please, I have no hate towards Requiem. Life reared its ugly head and he had to deal with his private life, and know that I have the greatest regards for what he did by stepping aside, and I hope for the very best outcome for his family.
Emily: But see a few years ago when it was these two guys that Lucius knows, the Ryders, held the titles and it took MONTHS for Feral Destruction to get a rematch because it wasn’t going to be Cam Davitt and Brian Brewster asking for the rematch, but instead of Brian it was Lynn, who had stepped aside because she was pregnant, that would be in the match. Management fought tooth and nail against letting Lynn in that match, but finally they caved and look what happened…Feral Destruction became champions.
Alzy: But we aren’t asking for such a thing. Yes the name of the group stayed the same, it stayed Hellfire, just the cast has changed slightly. I don’t know where people get off saying that we’re switching around the team depending on how it suits us. Well no, it’s that Chris wanted to retire from active wrestling, he wanted to manage which is something he’s very good at, and they asked me to join. Story ends there because I joined.
Emily: So I think we’ve cleared up the “original tag team partner”. See the team we faced of Jessica Tendonin and Johnathan Mills said that we claimed we were the only ones who could the rule. I’d love to know when we EVER said that, because we didn’t.
Alzy: And then people have decided on their own that I’m bitter because of my losses. I love knowing what I think, which could be further from the truth. Yes I lost to Paige Lewis, but it’s not like I’m the only one she has beaten. But I think even Paige would tell you that I put a great deal into that match, and if she ever offered me a rematch, I would take it.
Emily: And don’t forget that apparently I think you’re holding us back, holding me back.
Alzy: And again, another person saying they know what happened when I faced you.
Emily: Ah yes….that you held back and purposely lost the match. You know, as the person who was on the opposite end of that rainbow, for someone who supposedly held back, I was pretty stiff and sore the next morning from the match we had.
Alzy: That’s because I didn’t hold back. Hell I was nervous going into that match because I know your trainer, perhaps better than anyone besides Lynn, and I know you learned from him, and you’ve learned it well. I would hope though, just like I hope if I ever get a rematch with Paige, that you know I’m bringing all I can to the match, and I defiantly wouldn’t be held back.
Emily: You know, one thing I found extremely interesting, and you may thank Chris for planting the seed in my mind. How long has it been since the tag titles were defended? I mean, the layer of dust on them has to be incredible because you see Kennedy, no one nagged you, said you had to find a partner to defend them. Hell going back to what happen to Lynn and Cam, I could throw a bloody fit right here and now and cry and kick my feet and be a bitch about how it says the champions was Empire, and suddenly overnight, without any match to seal it, DEA is the champion. Well DEA never WON the championship. At least with Feral Destruction, you knew going in who all three members are. But no, Kennedy is allowed to pick a person at random and sign them up as your tag partner.
Alzy: That’s pretty damn ballsy of you. I know if we tried anything remotely similar you would whine and cry, and then do anything you could to make sure we don’t get that title shot. Saying things like we didn’t earn them or…..here’s my favorite, we didn’t lose them, a different team did. Yes I realize we haven’t been able to say that just yet, but think about it. At least when Lynn wanted back, and this was after returning after having a child, I know the fits that management threw. Finally you caved to quiet her, and she turned around and won the titles.
Emily: See Lynn was honestly and above board with her desire. Empire….DEA….whoever you are now, you are like “well we’re using this rule too”. Great, wonderful, but you can’t keep the team name the same and that is the largest act of cowardice in my eyes.
Alzy: So try and plant all the dissention that you want, say that one of us is holding back from the other, whatever makes sense in those little pea sized brains you guys have. Oh and by the way I hope you stop and think Kennedy, you have a chance to take on and defeat Paige. A rested, in shape Brian Kennedy maybe…..MAYBE would have a chance to beat Paige, but facing her after your match with us? Do you give your all to our match, and then not have much left for your match with Paige, or…..
Emily: Do you hold back, and cost yourself one, if not both titles.
Alzy: We know where we stand. In fact Emily is in a very similar predicament as you Kennedy.
Emily: And I’m bringing all I have plus some for my matches. So see boys we have things under control, running as smooth as can be.
Alzy: While you two haven’t had a match as partners for so long……
Emily: The dust on my shelves is getting pretty thick.
Alzy: You know there is one thing though…..I wonder…..
Emily looks up at him, wondering what is on his mind.
Alzy: If Lynn came back and teamed with you, could the tag titles go from being held by Hellfire to Feral Destruction without any match?
Emily: I highly doubt that. We would probably have to vacate the title, then there be a tournament where Lynn and I would have to beat all the other tag teams and THEN we could say the name of the team is Feral Destruction. Too bad others don’t have to follow the same protocol.
Alzy: Protocol or not, we are the team that wants to be the SCW Tag Team champions.
Emily: We’re the team that should be the tag team champions.
Alzy: And at TLC we will be the team….that are the champions.
Camera fades to black.
